I first published this post before Trump’s weekend executive order imposing a temporary immigration ban on nations — coincidentally Muslim nations — that import terrorism to give America time to come up with an optimal vetting system. At the time, it was simply my comment about what I saw as a good inaugural speech. I now think my post is even more pertinent. Please read it and tell me what you think.

I liked Trump’s pithy, punchy inaugural speech. I didn’t see anything fascist in his claim that it’s time for America to repair herself before dashing out to be the world’s savior. That is, I see nothing peculiar in an American president making America’s economic health and national security — matters that affect all citizens regardless of race, color, creed, sex, or sexual orientation — his top priorities.

It wasn’t until I read Virgil’s analysis of the Trump inaugural speech, though, that I realized why Trump made so much sense to me. Virgil describes the speech’s core this way:

Virgil believes that Trump’s speech marks a watershed in American history. That is, in recent decades, it had been possible for a president to natter on about America’s duties to the world as a whole, and yet it was seen as gauche to talk about America’s duties to itself, and to her people. But that all changed today. It was Trump who spoke of “carnage” in our cities (and what other word could one use to describe, for example, the nearly 800 murders in Chicago last year, part of an overall 14 percent rise?). It was Trump who spoke also of “rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation.”

“America first,” therefore, isn’t about white supremacy or world domination. Instead, it’s the simple recognition that the Leftist belief that America’s past sins have been so bad that she must repair the world before she can care for herself and her citizens is a recipe for disaster, both at home and abroad. And that’s where those in-flight safety videos come in.

As part of my membership in the Watcher’s Council, I get the opportunity to contribute to the weekly council forum, the most recent of which concerned President Trump’s inaugural speech. I’ve written about the speech already (twice, actually), but I took yet another approach in the forum and would like to share it here. In addition to reading my take, I also strongly urge you to check out, not only this week’s forum, but all of the offerings at WOW! Magazine, which is a collaborative effort featuring some stunningly good conservative bloggers.

I thought the speech was masterful. It represented a return to founding principles contained in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Lincoln summarized the core principle in his Gettysburg Address: Unlike all other nations, now or in the past, America is “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Trump opened by reminding the people that government has become a self-serving entity that has no regard for the people’s needs — and their needs are great. Trump promised to return government to the people: to make it smaller and more user-friendly, rather than a vast behemoth that serves a narrow Blue segment in Washington, D.C., and America’s more expensive enclaves.

The speech also put America first in a way that we should all understand. “America First” does not mean nationalistic world conquest. In fact, when America is coming first, it means the opposite.

Since WWII, America has born the responsibility for caring for the rest of the world. It willingly shouldered that burden, both because it was the last intact First World country standing after WWII and because it saw its responsibilities as part of its own battle against communism in the Cold War.

Sadly, in exchange for America’s blood and money, the rest of the world has responded with insults and attacks. Moreover, now that the Cold War has officially ended and America is engaged in a hot war with radical Islam, the rest of the world — except for Israel — is not only insulting America, it’s routinely aiding and abetting this existential enemy. Even worse, for the last eight years, our own president provided aid and succor to anti-American forces through the world.

It is time, therefore, for America, at least temporarily, to stop being the world’s banker, policeman, and nanny. America has exhausted its financial resources and good will on a singularly ungrateful world. America needs to see to its own needs. That is, it really must put itself first if it is to survive. Once America has regrouped — strengthened its economy, secured its borders, and increased its national security, including helping its few stalwart allies around the world — then, and only then, can it see whether its future wealth and security will benefit from venturing forth once again into the greater world.

One last thing: For all the accessible vocabulary and sentence structure — that is, this was not an academically complex and erudite speech — it’s worth noting that Trump managed to pack an amazing number of important principles into those 20 minutes. As I learned long ago reading Supreme Court opinions, the best ideas, principles, laws, and facts are the ones that can be expressed in the most straightforward terms. When a writer or speaker gets very complicated and starts spinning vast webs of words, that person is outright lying to you or at least hoping you’ll miss various sins of omission.

You can read here what other WOW! members had to say about the inaugural speech. They express a number of different viewpoints, but all of them give the inaugural speech positive reviews and are pleased with where our nation is heading.

Unlike George Will, I liked the pithy, punchy Trump inaugural speech. I didn’t see anything fascist in his claim that it’s time for America to repair herself before dashing out to be the world’s savior. That is, I see nothing peculiar in an American president making America’s economic health and national security — matters that affect all citizens regardless of race, color, creed, sex, or sexual orientation — his top priorities.

It wasn’t until I read Virgil’s analysis of the Trump inaugural speech, though, that I realized why Trump made so much sense to me. Virgil describes the speech’s core this way:

Virgil believes that Trump’s speech marks a watershed in American history. That is, in recent decades, it had been possible for a president to natter on about America’s duties to the world as a whole, and yet it was seen as gauche to talk about America’s duties to itself, and to her people. But that all changed today. It was Trump who spoke of “carnage” in our cities (and what other word could one use to describe, for example, the nearly 800 murders in Chicago last year, part of an overall 14 percent rise?). It was Trump who spoke also of “rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation.”

“America first,” therefore, isn’t about white supremacy or world domination. Instead, it’s the simply recognition that the Left’s belief that America’s past sins have been so bad that she must repair the world before she can care for herself and her citizens is a recipe for disaster, both at home and abroad. And that’s where those in-flight safety videos come in.

I don’t know about you, but I thought Donald Trump’s inauguration speech was excellent. It was short, direct, and outwardly focused. By “outwardly focused” I mean that President Trump, unlike President Obama, did not anoint himself as a godhead through endless self-references. Instead, Trump made the American people the stars of his speech. For example,

That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.

It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America.

This is your day. This is your celebration.

And this, the United States of America, is your country.

What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.

January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.

The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.

Everyone is listening to you now.

You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before.

At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens.

Trump’s focus on the American people (“you”), rather than himself, is in marked contrast to Obama’s speeches, which invariably are all about . . . Obama. The words “we” or “I” dot his rhetorical landscape and his image is the focal point for every event the White House commemorates. Just think of these gems from his Twitter feed:

Now that I’ve made my point about Trump’s focus on the people and Obama’s focus on himself, I have to make good on my promise that Trump’s speech is marvelously consistent with Judeo-Christian tradition. I can do that.